There are multiple types (categories) of golf clubs such as drivers, woods, utilities, irons, and putters, and these multiple types of golf clubs are combined so as to customize a set of golf clubs suited to individual persons. A set of golf clubs is normally constituted by 14 golf clubs including five clubs as essential elements with these being one driver, one putter, and three irons referred to as a PW (pitching wedge), an AW (approach wedge), and an SW (sand wedge). The remaining nine golf clubs are then selected from among specific types of golf clubs such as woods, utilities, and irons suited to individual persons. That is, there are multiple numbered golf clubs existing in these types of golf clubs such as woods, utilities, and irons, and the user is able to freely combine from among these various types of variously numbered golf clubs, for example, with number 3 and number 5 woods, a number 3 utility, and number 4 through number 9 irons. However, the determination of which type and which number should be selected often mainly depends on intuition and it is not easy to customize a set of golf clubs.
Conventional technologies for assisting the customization of golf club sets include JP 2009-226215A (hereinafter, patent document 1) for example. This document discloses a system that, based on measurement data and the like in which a golfer has performed test-hits of golf clubs, determines a set such that desired intervals (which are uniform in some cases and non-uniform in some cases) of flight-distances are achieved according to the golf clubs included in the set, and presents this to the user. That is, in patent document 1, a golf club set is selected automatically from a perspective such that a desired distribution of flight-distances is achieved. Furthermore, patent document 1 also discloses that a golfer's preferences are comprehended from interviews and the like and inputted to the system, then used in determining the set of golf clubs. It should be noted that the golfer preferences referred to in patent document 1 include desired types and numbers of golf clubs (such as numbers of irons and woods) and club lengths for example.
However, multiple golf clubs may be present that achieve an equivalent flight-distance. For example, ordinarily woods, utilities, and irons are designed so that their loft angles are smaller and their flight-distances are extended for smaller numerical values of their respective numbers. Furthermore, although as a general tendency the flight-distances of woods are longer than the flight-distances of utilities, which are longer than the flight-distances of irons, overlapping areas also exist among these. Accordingly, although this tends not to occur within the same type of clubs, the flight-distances are frequently equivalent between different types of golf clubs such as a utility and an iron and the like. Patent document 1 does not envisage such a situation at all and does not disclose any solution in regard to what should be done in a case where golf clubs that achieve equivalent flight-distances are found when selecting golf clubs giving attention to the flight-distance. Furthermore, although the golfer's preferences are referenced in determining the golf club set in patent document 1, it eventuates that the preferences are intuition. That is, conventionally, the golfer still can only select golf clubs relying on his own or his instructor's intuition, and this makes it difficult to customize the set of golf clubs.